Panel discusses ways to change legislative redistricting in Illinois

Legislative redistricting needs to be taken out of the hands of lawmakers, who can gerrymander districts to their parties' benefit. The question of exactly how, though, remains.

KAREN McDONALD

Legislative redistricting needs to be taken out of the hands of lawmakers, who can gerrymander districts to their parties' benefit. The question of exactly how, though, remains.

The Illinois Reform Commission, one of two reform-minded panels created to study campaign finance, government transparency and other topics that have tarnished the reputation of state government, tackled that subject Monday and learned of several recommendations proponents say would be an improvement over the current process.

"It's a winner-take-all crap shoot where the districts are drawn with no respect to community or public interest," said former state Sen. Duane Noland, a member of the commission that met Monday at Bradley University.

Noland was a beneficiary of redistricting in 1992 and said he changed careers because of it in 2002.

Currently, if lawmakers can't agree on a new redistricting map, the job goes to a panel with equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans. If that panel deadlocks, the names of one Republican and one Democrat are placed in a hat and one name is pulled out. That party then wins control of the redistricting process and can draw boundaries to benefit their political party, and the result is non-competitive districts.

"Ten years of what's going to happen in Illinois government is dependent on the big lotto and who pulls the name out of the Abraham Lincoln stovepipe hat. We think Illinois can do better," said Dr. John Jackson of the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute.

One recommendation would be to model the process after Iowa, which turns redistricting over to an independent body and a computer programmed to be blind to party and incumbency.

Iowa doesn't use the number of Democrats or Republicans who live in an area in redistricting. As a result, its districts are much cleaner, compact, contiguous and politically competitive.

"There are other states that do a far better job of keeping politics and power out of the process - Iowa is just one example. Gerrymandering does not lead to open and fair elections; rather, it leads to a consolidation of power with the incumbents," said Rob Parks, chief operating officer of the Peoria Area Chamber of Commerce, who testified before the commission.

Another option would be a proposal crafted by the Paul Simon Institute. Political parties would be given the opportunity to agree on new district boundaries; if they can't, the chief justice of the Supreme Court and ranking justice from the other party would pick an independent magistrate who then would use a computer program similar to the Iowa model to draw the legislative districts. A bill mirroring that plan has been introduced in the Illinois House.

District boundaries are redrawn every 10 years after the U.S. Census to account for population changes.

The commission also heard testimony on watering down some power of the "rules committees" in the Illinois House of Representatives and the Illinois Senate, which many times control whether legislation will advance.

Former state Sen. Steve Rauschenberger said the Senate president and House speaker traditionally use "rules" as their control committees if their is a bill they don't want on the floor. He recommended changing the rules in each legislative chamber so any time there are eight senators or 16 state representatives co-sponsoring a bill it would be allowed out of rules.

Illinois State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias touted Senate Bill 1734, which would combine the state's five pension systems into one - dubbed ILPERS, the Illinois Public Employees Retirement System.

"The broken system has cost the state billions of dollars already," Giannoulias said, adding the current system is ineffective and a "cesspool" for pay-to-play politics.

Giannoulias also weighed in on corruption in state government.

"Everyone is so concerned with getting re-elected that there's less of a long-term perspective on budget challenges, on making the right decisions," he said.

The next town hall meeting is April 6 at the University of Illinois College of Law in Champaign. The Reform Commission will make some initial recommendations to Gov. Pat Quinn on Tuesday.

Karen McDonald can be reached at 686-3285 or kmcdonald@pjstar.com.

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